ok what the fuck is happening in ukraine

I'm not saying they're all vehemently opposed to Russia. Just that there was pretty much a stampede into the arms of the West post-breakup. I'm thinking more of states like Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, etc. Most are now members of NATO, EU, etc. I think it's pretty blinkered to put this all down to CIA involvement or something sinister.

Absolutely, but none of those countries have a large Russian population or a recent history of being part of the same country as Russia. There was also a much clearer path to European integration on the table.

The countries that you mention were aggressively courted by NATO as a way of containing Russian influence but also very receptive, for the most part.

a view from the right

http://pjmedia.com/richardfernandez/2014/04/15/sadist-versus-narcissist/#more-36053

One reason why Putin has made a special effort to humiliate the president is that his profilers may have pegged Obama as suffering from narcissistic personality disorder. Putin the secret policeman must be thinking: how do you get a narcissist to melt down? Answer: by personally and publicly shaming him, thereby provoking a narcissistic rage.

That rage can take either of two forms: a reckless act or a withdrawal into a fantasy in which the narcissist remains invincible in some universe of his own.

Either would suit Putin. Ironically Ronan Farrow and Obama’s supporters may be doing an unwitting service by stoking Obama’s ego thereby calming him down. The question is whether they can flatter him enough to prevent a Putin-induced meltdown. So far, so good, except for odd little squeals from Obama calling Russia a “regional power”. But Putin may have only begun to twist in the knife. It’s sadist versus narcissist.

Too bad it couldn’t have been between Putin and Ronald Reagan. Or Tuco and Walter White.

Hmm, lots of high-school level insults without a single substantive suggestion of what we should be doing differently. Not surprising.

possibly interesting development from Geneva:

Summary of Lavrov's speech:

All squares and buildings currently occupied will be freed.

Protesters will be given amnesty.

Only legitimate government groups will have arms.

Ukraine and Russia will collaborate with OSCE.

A paper has been circulated to regions of the Ukraine outlining these points that will then be followed up.

?

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/04/17/jews-ordered-to-register-in-east-ukraine/7816951/

Xp, Brilliantly played by Putin if this carries on the ground.

The threat of separatism is far more useful than actually having to integrate more breakaway regions into Russia, with all the international condemnation that would bring.

Russia gets to look reasonable and statesmanlike in dampening the crisis, drawing attention away from Crimea.

Ukraine gets to regain a measure of control of the East and a perfect excuse to clear out the remaining Maidan protesters / disarm right-wing militias.

The leaflets don't fit into the Donbass narrative of protecting Jewish Ukrainians from the neo-Nazi government so are a little suspect on that front.

this is all from twitter, but, apparently kerry just mentioned that jewish registry order. aaaand the ADL just questioned its authenticity. great.

as soon as i saw it people on twitter were questioning it as a hoax; i was surprised to see kerry speak on it directly

Some more background here:

http://thinkprogress.org/world/2014/04/17/3428041/someone-is-ordering-eastern-ukraines-jews-to-register-with-separatist-group/

It looks like the flyers were handed out but the groups named have flatly denied anything to do with them and suggested it's an attempt to stir up trouble.

https://twitter.com/lindseyhilsum/status/456827209354063872 & tweets following -- addresses these claims

The leaflets don't fit into the Donbass narrative of protecting Jewish Ukrainians from the neo-Nazi government so are a little suspect on that front.

― Yuri Bashment (ShariVari), Thursday, April 17, 2014 5:40 PM (31 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

eso

Article drawing an unfavorable comparison between the US diplomatic corps and Russia's:

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/04/russias-diplomats-are-better-than-ours-105773_full.html#.U1AZ11ukqQi

Excellent piece. It's baffling how little importance the US places on diplomatic appointments.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117415/relax-ukraine-not-ordering-its-jews-register

^^^ sort of obnoxious "everyone relax" but good to point out as yet there's literally only been this flyer no one is taking credit for

Excellent piece. It's baffling how little importance the US places on diplomatic appointments.

I guess to play devil's advocate one could argue that traditional diplomatic posts, such as ambassadorships, are somewhat of a relic in an era of instantaneous world-wide communication. In the days when it could take days or weeks for instructions from the home capital to reach a foreign capital it was of course essential to have a highly skilled ambassador representing the home country. Nowadays, the position could be argued to be of fairly minor importance.

Not sure I agree with that. Most countries still place a great deal of importance on face-to-face meetings between senior officials. It's an old-fashioned business and videoconferencing or whatever is not going to take the place of the traditional meeting and the handshake anytime soon.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2014/04/surprise-deal-reached-ukraine-crisis-201441718346462987.html

lol, isn't he in the Rubberbandits?

Most countries still place a great deal of importance on face-to-face meetings between senior officials.

Sure, but for that you have air travel. I don't usually hear about high-level meetings these days being conducted with ambassadors. It seems like ambassadors are mostly used for representing the state on formal occasions and in other antiquated bits of political theater, such as summoning the ambassador for a dressing down to display displeasure.

Just found out that my sister is going to Ukraine next month to be an election observer. Somewhat jealous that she's going!

I was looking for flights from Paris to Tel Aviv for this coming June and saw that the cheapest flights go through Kiev. I will pass.

Photos Link Masked Men in East Ukraine to Russia

Photos Link Masked Men in East Ukraine to Russia
--Mordy <img src="/s.png">

at this point it doesn't look like anything will stop russian from effectively annexing much of eastern ukraine, does it?

the mendacity and audacity of putin's realpolitik is astonishing to me, which probably says more about how naïve i am rather than about geopolitics

The Eastern provinces with the strong separatist movements (Donetsk and Luhansk) may be of more strategic value to Moscow as thorns in Ukraine's side. Putin wants a weak central government in all of Ukraine, which will be easier if these two stay in the fold. With Crimean autonomy/annexation, at least, there's a $45 billion windfall, now they can renege on the long term gas discounts Kiev demanded for the lease. Not sure Donetsk and Luhansk, despite being the industrial rust belt of Ukraine, have anywhere near that net value.

While its probably not in Moscow's interest to annex these, given the international outrage, of course they'll want to monitor events with boots on the ground. I'm doubt Russian military represent a significant part of the partisans occupying city halls or tooling around in APCs, which could just as easily be drawn from the defections/resignations of Ukrainian troops including the Navy chief reported in early March. Likewise the U.S. has probably reinforced its CIA station with some JSOC troops, again less for intervention than real-time intel and additional attachés with Turchynov loyalists in the Ukrainian military.

Nice story on how nonplussed most inhabitants of Donetsk are. Separatists and loyalists each poll around a 20%, but 25% could care less.

This is just going to end up like Cyprus, right?

Pre-partition Cypriots were also divided by religion and alphabet, and never had even a somewhat functional polity. Pressures to choose Greek enosis came from within Cyprus. I perceive Ukraine's present misery stems from clumsy external pressures to choose sides, whereas the majority of Ukranians don't want to have to choose between EU and Russian ties, and support both languages for official use.

They could do worse than ending up like Cyprus.

@Congratulations "Nonplussed" means "surprised," "shocked," "taken aback," "confused." For some reason lots of people think it means the opposite.

Thanks, apparently I've only been exposed to the North American informal usage. Et tu, Obama?

If the Ukrainian army won't take up arms in Donetsk and Luhansk, perhaps Parubiy's newly-formed National Guard assembled from Western Ukrainian militants will.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/pro-russian-separatists-confirm-american-israeli-journalist-hostage/

vice.com guy

He'll be OK though, these Russians love Jews

speaking of http://forward.com/articles/196864/the-real-truth-about-those-anti-semitic-flyers-in/

The outrage by the Russian government over anti-Semitism in Ukraine, well, I think the term 'manufactured' barely covers it

The new government's security apparatus is almost entirely headed by West Ukranian neo-fascists. Max Blumenthal called attention to these ugly people in this Salon piece.

Oleh Tyahnybok (leader of Svoboda) called for the liberation of his country from the “Muscovite-Jewish mafia.” After the 2010 conviction of the Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk for his supporting role in the death of nearly 30,000 people at the Sobibor camp, Tyahnybok rushed to Germany to declare him a hero who was “fighting for truth.” In the Ukrainian parliament, where Svoboda holds an unprecedented 37 seats, Tyahnybok’s deputy Yuriy Mykhalchyshyn is fond of quoting Joseph Goebbels – he has even founded a think tank originally called “the Joseph Goebbels Political Research Center.”

There are Celtic crosses and American Confederate battle flags hanging in Kiev's city hall.

After the mass resignations from the military, Parubiy is rectruiting a new new National Guard with West Ukrainian militants at its core, the same ones that raided a Lviv military depot prior to the 18 February clashes in Maidan.

The flyers may be fake. There are still plenty of reasons to find some leaders of the Kiev putsch repugnant.

Well we know that but do you actually believe the Russians give a flying fuck about it?

Putin is generally considered to be pro-Israel and supportive of Jewish Russians, on the whole. Not views that are shared by the likes of Zhirinovsky, of course.

There were rumours that the shooting in Mariupol which left three pro-Russian activists dead was instigated by the National Guard as soldiers refused to open fire on Ukrainian citizens but idk how many they are likely to be able to recruit.

They're aiming for 60,000, just less than the former 73,300 Ukrainian Army. Between Svoboda, Right Sector skinheads, and careerists, they should be able to provide the bodies, if not expertise. But that will come.

Even a botched, half-assed civil war serves Brzezinski's grand strategy.

It's certainly an ambitious target and i'm not sure where they're going to get the money from. Looks like a combination of government-aligned militia and a bunch of trainees. If they get a tenth of that over the next few months, i'd be a little surprised, to be honest.

The Maidan self-defense were getting 600 militants per day from Lviv, with busloads were bypassing checkpoints on main roads. Right Sector claims 5-10,000 supporters. Svoboda won 2.1 million votes. There's an 8% unemployment rate, probably higher in the less-educated West.

60,000 bodies isn't a problem. 60,000 disciplined and enthusiastic bodies might be.

The interesting fissure I'm hoping for (to prevent calamity) is between Svoboda and Fatherland. If Fatherland has objections to throwing skinheads against past Party of Regions supporters (uncertain, given the very dirty nature of Ukrainian politics) and voices them publicly and soon, then there's perhaps a conciliatory way out. I've read that Western diplomats demanded a coalition government prior to diplomatic recognition, precisely to temper the far-right. We'll see.

I don't think there were 600 militants a day coming from Lviv to Kyiv - that's the estimate claimed by Euromaidan for the total number of protesters coming from Lviv per day, which is probably exaggerated and would include a broadly peaceful majority. Pravy Sektor, again, has an incentive to exaggerate numbers. Iirc, most of the estimates for armed participants in the Kyiv situation were high hundreds / low thousands, and not all of them would be interested in fighting in the East.

There have already been attempts led by Fatherland to disarm / dissolve some far-right groups and even if attempts are being made to bring them into the conflict in the East, I can't see it being particularly stable. I think Fatherland / Svoboda will form a coalition after the election but I wouldn't be surprised to see Yarosh marginalised further.

Ukraine doesn't really have the money or equipment to arm it's current solders (I think only around half are combat ready) so being able to organise anything else will be a massive challenge. Another challenge is that most of the resistance the regular army ran into hasn't been heavily armed militants - it has been everyone from kids to old ladies forming barricades. I can't see them being any more effective. Increased brutality could also lead to more defections from the real army.

I don't disagree. Perhaps a core of 10-20,000 true believers from the West, but otherwise I suspect the vast majority of Ukrainians are keeping their heads down and hoping the elections will bring saner heads to the fore. Loyal Pravy Sektor characters are the last people I'd like to see facing a civilian barricade, though. Too many paths to disaster that require only a few provocateurs.

SV, forgive my earlier raging -- I that Sanpaku is who I accused you of being earlier.

Mayor of Kharkiv (2nd largest city in Ukraine) Hennadiy Kernes was just shot in the back.

And on a lighter note, newly decorated town signs.

How to storm your local administration building. Don't forget your Adidas sneakers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5E-WhnbmOVg